


The Kirkwall Therapist

by DovaBunny



Series: Fenders Ficlets [17]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anders is an incredible healer of both body and mind, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fenders, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, M/M, Mild Alcohol Abuse, Mistaken Identity, Mutual but also not quite, Personal Growth, Pining, Secret Identity, Therapy, but fenris too, but he his issues as issues, fenderswintersend, in a round about way, no beta we die like men, sex therapist - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:20:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22284001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DovaBunny/pseuds/DovaBunny
Summary: A rumour is going around about a mysterious person known only as 'the therapist'. Some say they have the ability to save people by sleeping with them, maybe the work of a demon, while others say the person is a divine gift the Maker sent this cursed city to help those in need.At the end of a hidden alley behind a nondescript door, a healer works the hairdye into his blond locks turning it copper, and picks up a mask.Or: the one where Anders is the mythical 'therapist' no one knows how to reach or find, and Fenris reaches the end of his rope. Only, he has no idea the therapist is the mage he despises.Idk this is bad don't read it I'm sorry Green (happy Christmas from your secret santa?)
Relationships: Anders/Fenris (Dragon Age), Fenris/female hawke (minor/past)
Series: Fenders Ficlets [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/791358
Comments: 39
Kudos: 158





	1. Nothing But a Rumour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Green_Sphynx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Green_Sphynx/gifts).



> Full cred also goes to Mago-Emplumado (or Plumas on Discord) for developing this AU with me!

“I would give… Carver. Jip, I’ll give up Carver.”

Carver’s outraged stutter was drowned out with Merrill’s sweet voice: “Oh we can give up people?”

“No Daisy,” Varric chuckled. “I’ll play along though, for such an honour I would wear my shirt buttoned up to the top for two months. And give a personal dedication in my new book.”

“Hmmm…” Isabela exaggerated as she tapped her nails on her ale mug. “I would give… my left boob. No, the right one. No… no, yes, the right one.”

“But that’s the best one,” Varric mocked in shock. “Wow Rivani, you really want this don’t you?”

Before Isabela could respond the door creaked open and Fenris and Anders walked entered. The tension in the room always went up a notch with the hostile vibes the two gave off when in close proximity. Bela would argue it was sexual tension. Anyone else would argue it was more on the murderous side.

“What’s this about giving up left boobs?” Anders asked as he took the seat furthest away from Fenris. Naturally.

“We’re talking about what we would be willing to give for one night with the infamous Lowtown Sex Therapist!” Hawke chimed in, eyes and teeth equally excited and slightly-feral looking. Cheap ale always had that effect on her.

Fenris groaned in irritation. “You’re still on about this garbage? It’s no more than a myth. I haven’t come across a single person who had met the so-called ‘therapist’.”

“That’s because its so secretive!” Merrill whispered loudly. Seems someone else has also partaken in the cheap ale on tap tonight. “No one knows how to find them, or where they are. They say if you really need them, their agents will reach out to you. Who they are, what they look like, where they are… its all a secret. But they are real!”

Fenris gave the little elf a deadpan look as he took a sip of his wine, obviously not convinced.

“It’s true Broody,” Varric added. From his tone Fenris knew the dwarf was telling the truth for once. “My sources have picked up on some of their former clients. Said the therapist damn near saved them. ‘Fixed’ them. Better than any counsel or head-healer money can buy in Hightown, and has brought really broken people back from the brink.”

“That’s preposterous,” Anders muttered, mostly to himself.

“I don’t care what it is, all I want is one night with them.” Bela continued. “They must be some kind of a sex deity! With a divine dick that can heal, or tits that taste of freedom and Antivan brandy. Oh what I wouldn’t give…” she got a dreamy far-off look and bit her bottom lip.

In fact, everyone around the table suddenly got a far-off look in their eye and seemed to disappear into their own thoughts for a moment. Even Fenris was staring into his wine with a thoughtful expression.

“Yes, well,” Anders interrupted as he rose to his feet, throwing back the last of his ale. “In the meanwhile, there’s an actual clinic full of people who actually need help from an actual healer. No rumours, no bullshit. Good night.”

Anders ignored Fenris’ scoff of ‘good riddance’ and Hawke calling to him as he left, more than a little fuming. Out in the cold evening air he took a few deep calming breaths, then continued walking – but a few streets on he looked around to make sure he wasn’t followed and turned down a small hidden alleyway.

What people didn’t understand about the ‘sex therapist’ was that it _wasn’t_ about ‘sex’, even though that is all the rumours were based on. Broken bones can be mended, bruises healed, and cuts closed – but some wounds were far deeper where no magic or healer could reach. They were the ones that choked you in your dreams, that turned your limbs to lead, that poisoned your head and heart till the knife in your pocket seemed all the more like salvation than self-defence. Such hurts needed to be guided to heal themselves, the person needs to learn to walk again, so to speak.

It all started in Kinloch. Anders’ first sexual experiences weren’t consensual. The two young templars tormented and took for almost a month before they were caught and simply moved to other stations. Anders had felt broken, dirty, and the only way out was blood – theirs, or his own. But then Karl was there. Karl sat with him and washed the filth off his body – the filth that the eye could see and what it couldn’t. He touched Anders tenderly, kissed his head, brushed his hair with care, and held him as he cried and raged, and even just as he silently stared into the darkness. Karl helped Anders reclaim what was taken from him, and in many long nights with gentle hands and soft kisses and muffled moans, Anders finally began to rewrite what his body knew of touch and intimacy. He started walking with his head held high again, he took back what they took and came out stronger. His mind and his body were his own, not theirs.

The next time a templar tried, he ended up with steel melted to his crotch.

Years later, years without Karl to guide him back to himself, and years of feeling his grip on himself slipping as years on the run and endless darkness of solitary had been forced to offer instead of having it taken – he met Zevran. The former Crow and master assassin shared his own sordid past with the mage after one too few bottles of Antivan brandy, and soon two warm bodies were moving against one another in the sheets. Seeking both release and relief for aches shallow and deep.

But Zevran wasn’t Karl, he was different. Skilled, impeccably so, but somehow it was like he knew what Anders _needed_ , not just what he wanted and begged for, and gave it to the healer while putting his own lust aside. They spent many nights in the sheets, Anders eager to learn, Zevran eager to teach, and both desperately wanting to heal and help the other heal. Within the Crows, even amongst those that left, their sexual abuse and ‘training’ was never mentioned, and in Anders the elf found a kindred spirit who listened and _understood. _

So yes, Anders was the Lowtown ‘Sex’ therapist. What the regular person didn’t know, however, was that his work had little to do with sex itself. Six nights a week he would arrive at his hidden apartment in Lowtown where he would have a few minutes to wash up and disguise himself before a client knocked. The ‘office’ had two comfortable couches and an armchair in front of the cozy fireplace, a table with a platter of fruit and breads, a big bookshelf, a large tub, and a soft four-poster bed. All warm, peaceful and inviting – creating the illusion of being completely cut off from the world outside. He would review his notes on the client about to come, check their progress and the plan they agreed on.

So how did you get an appointment with him? He was unreachable, that much was true, but also that if you truly needed him, _they_ will come to you. It was Leliana softly approaching the woman in the back of the chantry crying out to the Maker for forsaking her, it was the inconspicuous dock worker that happened to reach out to the man with the blank stare but red eyes as he was about to step off into the stormy waters below, and it was Zevran refusing payment for killing an abusive spouse from a broken person who seemed like they couldn’t find enough clothes to cover their body, instead suggesting that he had someone to introduce them to.

Broken people didn’t need chantry sisters praying with them, a pitiful smile, or coin in the hand. They needed to be put back together, to reclaim themselves. The sessions were designed to be a safe space, away from the rest of the world, where they were treated as who they are – not as what happened to them or what they had done. Some wanted to play make believe, pretend that they were coming home to a doting lover, and would spend their time talking about their day and sharing a meal. Others had to learn to trust again, and something as small as holding Anders’ hand while he read aloud was a big step, or cuddling close but trusting Anders not to touch them without consent. Sometimes it is that a person needs to learn to let go and let Anders take their body into his well-educated and trained hands, helping them move beyond their fear and learn to trust through soft ropes, enticing spanking, and hours on the edge of the abyss where they forget their own names. Others needed to stop seeing their bodies as dirty and ugly, and for them the biggest step would be lying naked in bed with Anders as they talked about happy things. And yes, there were those who felt the need to reclaim their sexuality, their own pleasure, that it wasn’t something to be ashamed of or tainted. They would have their bodies worshiped till they cried, or praised as they took their pleasure – often by their own hands. Most importantly, it is learning to be kind to themselves and that their minds, their hearts, and bodies are good and whole and capable – and worthy - of love. It overrides old hurt and self-hate.

Anders puts on his mask, his hair coloured with a fine weightless oil to make it red, in plain but elegant clothes. Three minutes later there’s a knock on the door, he clears his throat to warm up his Navarran accent and goes to open it with a smile.


	2. The New Patient

It had been a long day for Anders. The damned bigoted elf had finally ripped the heart out of his former master’s apprentice – may the vile bitch rest in piss – but instead of relief and victory, the elf still spat his hatred of mages. And, of course, it was all aimed at Anders who was foolish enough to heal the elf who was bleeding from an artery. The blighted hypocrite hurled insults he never would have had it been Bethany, ranting that Hadriana and Anders were both reminders that magic is not safe without control and regulation – they would impose their magic without thought on others.

The elf didn’t give a fuck that Anders was trying to heal him. He didn’t give a fuck about Anders, the weak abomination. And as much as the healer spat back – it hurt. He hated himself for it, but he had a soft spot for the former slave who pretends to be distant but has a kind and gentle heart to everyone except slavers and Anders, and was loyal to a fault. In another life, maybe he could’ve been one of Fenris' friends who the elf fiercely protects and cares for.

He is shaken from his depressing thoughts by a knock on the door to his office. In his deep Navarran accent he calls to wait just a moment. Already washed and in his fresh clothes, he rushes to hide his robes and staff and raggedy boots. A new client tonight, an emergency. Leliana had sent word that she would be sending someone and he had only a few minutes to get here and get ready. This wasn’t rare, it was often the case when someone was first sent to him. It was someone on the edge of cracking turning into breaking.

Mask and smile on, he opens the door to a sight he thought he’d never see.

Fenris, the fierce warrior and former slave, stands before him in just a loose tunic and leggings, looking small and vulnerable. His big red-rimmed eyes are watery.

“Are you the therapist?” his low voice asks, tone unsteady, after Anders only stares silently.

“Y-yes, apologies, I am.” Anders should send him away, now, before the elf realises its him.

Fenris sighs in relief, then his chin quivers. “I…I need help. I need to be fixed. Please.”

It was the _please_ that got him. Anders had never heard the elf use that word before and did a quick check that he wasn’t in the fade. The elf also didn’t seem to recognise him in the slightest with his red hair, mask that went from below his cheekbones over his eyes and nose to his eyebrows, accent, and unusual posture and clothes. He silently opened the door and gestured the elf inside.

Anders’ head was spinning, looking for ways to let the elf down easy. He may have invited him in from the cold, but he couldn’t take him on. There is to much history here, too much… unwanted feelings. A therapist should be impartial, a nameless but gentle guide.

“I’m afraid there may have been-” Anders starts, only to be cut off by Fenris. His voice nervous and desperate. “ _Please_ ,” he asks again, “I… I’ll do anything. I just… I can’t go on like this.” Anders’ voice stuck in his throat. Justice tugged at his mind that he shouldn’t be selfish. This isn’t about him and it would be unjust to send Fenris away.

Anders guides the elf to sit in the armchair across from him, knowing the elf isn't comfortable yet. He notions for Fen to talk and after taking a few shaky breaths he starts. He talks about how incomplete and broken he is, how he feels dirty all the time, he hates his body and himself for not being able to get over this. He says he slept with someone he cares for but it ended in disaster. He had thought he would be okay moving on from the past but he was wrong. He needs to get over this to be free.

Fenris admits he had spent months looking for him, but after tonight… he had run out of hope. That is when Leliana found him on the steps of the chantry – feeling too broken and dirty to go in. When the healer tries, as gently as he can, to recommend he seek help somewhere else – perhaps a brother at the Chantry - Fenris persists, he begs! He needs this, he can’t be a free man with these chains still keeping him back, he wants to feel like his life and body is his own, wants to be intimate without feeling shame and like he is an object.

At that Anders resigns himself to the role of therapist. He cannot possibly turn the elf away, not when he can see how it physically hurts Fenris to admit he needs help and to open these old festering wounds to the therapist. Anders would have never guessed the elf had been hurting so terribly. Fenris always seemed such a proud, sound, confident man. 

But this is why Anders did what he did – for people like himself, like Zevran, like Fenris. During the days he heals bodies till his mana gives out, and at night he helps heal minds and souls till his own was just a husk. In truth, Anders is incredibly lonely. He can’t date anyone because he has no time and he can’t trust anyone with the entire truth of his identity. Anders sometimes even had old clients come into his clinic happily married with their partner with a babe on the way, and he has pretends he doesn’t know them but inside bursts with pride and joy for their progress and wishes he could hug them. He sees the people he helps heal and move on, but he never does. His own pain never heals, not entirely, and it keeps pushing him to help others.

So, he can’t push Fenris away. He knows how hard it must be for the proud private man to have come this far. He can see how nervous and tense Fenris is though and knows this might be tough.

Keeping his voice carefully disguised, Anders fights to remain emotionally disconnected and, with Justice’s steel focus, manages to go into full therapist mode. The first days is just about communication. Anders wants to know what the main issues the client identifies are and together plan a treatment. He makes sure to reassure Fenris that he is safe here, that nothing said or done in here will ever leave the door, and he can make it stop whenever he wants. He gives him safe words and gestures, and his no kissing on the lips rule. He doesn’t expect the sessions with the elf to ever reach anything sexual, but it always sets the clients at ease.

He can do this. He has to do this. This isn’t about him, it never is. This is for Fenris.

So Fenris talks. He doesn’t think he’s heard the elf talk so much since he met him, so listening attentively and encouraging him is no act. Anders cares for Fenris, he can’t deny it, and it only gets stronger as Fenris pours his heart out. Sitting in the comfortably chairs in front of the warm fireplace, Anders’ heart freezes and aches for the broken, miserable elf in front of him whose hands quiver and glassy eyes remain on the floor as his rough unsteady voice tells of how he is so used to being an object – used, abused, replaced – that something inside him feels disjointed and broken beyond repair, like he isn’t whole and never will be. He looks up at Anders and asks if it makes sense?

Anders swallows thickly and nods. He has spent many years building the high walls he has around his heart to shield his low self-esteem. Karl had tried to teach him otherwise, but Karl was gone – by his hand – and in his deepest heart he honestly didn’t see himself as desirable or worth love. But he knew what his clients felt like, he had been there, and he spent countless hours educating himself and training in counselling and therapy. It’s not about him.

The tension around Fenris’ eyes ease a little at that. He sighs as his feet shuffle in the carpet. “Control… is important to me. I want, no, I _need_ to get over this blinding anxiety that takes hold of me. Whenever I feel my control slipping its… terrifying. I panic, freak out, lash out. I tried, _really_ I did. But the flashbacks came and I felt like I was losing my senses and all I could think was to run…hide… I’m a coward. _Kaffas,_ what magic had done to me… taken from him… left me as. It would seem all I know – all I will ever know – is being a slave, only looking for a new master to serve.”

Fenris got up and started pacing, his voice just as unsteady but his watery eyes on fire while his words became more disjointed. “…disfigured and horrendous… I can barely bathe naked, the sight of my own body fills me with such shame. I still hear the insults, the hands, and the comments as I was paraded about like some exotic _pet._ An object, and animal. They haunt me in sleep and wake. Who could ever really love this?!” he gestures over his body.

The mask hides the distress the mage feels. Does the elf not know how beautiful he is? How wonderful and intelligent? Yes, he’s a hypocritical tit and a self-righteous asshat, but he is also so much more.

Anders clears his throat and keeps his voice deep, accented, but soft. “I understand your desperation, and that your goal is to be intimate with this person you care for,” and didn’t Anders’ stomach clench at that knowing it was Hawke, “but you need to be kind and patient with yourself first. Learn to crawl before you walk, then soon you’ll learn to run. For now, you first need to learn control that you are in control, and to become comfortable in your own skin. We can work up to the rest.”

Fenris slowly sits back down on the armchair across from Anders, his shoulders hunching again as his ears droop. He nods to Anders’ words, and for a moment he reminds the mage of a wounded, scared, and cornered kitten. Move too fast and it’ll bolt, but those big eyes are so carefully full of hope it hurts.

Anders knows that they'll need to start very slow and focus on the elf's self-esteem and body before they can work up to the elf having sex with Hawke without falling apart. “Fenris, you seem a smart and determined person. Coming here shows your bravery and courage,” Anders warms a little at seeing the elf’s ears perk up just a little, “and you will get there, I have no doubt. For the next session I’d like you to bring a book or hobby you’d be comfortable to do with me close by. You may also pick a book from the bookshelf here,” Anders almost flinches when he remembers the elf can’t read. “I can read to you if you like,” he adds.

At the elf’s facial expression its clear Fenris finds it odd, but he nods. “I…trust your expertise. I will bring a book and you can read it aloud.” Anders smiles and then sends the elf home for the day with a date and time for their next meeting.

When the next session comes around Anders asks Fenris to remove his clothes and get under the covers. Fen freezes but Anders reminds him the door’s key is in the lock and he can leave any time, and promises not to touch him or look. Anders turns away and very slowly Fenris does as asked. When he calls to Anders the blonde sees him deep under the covers. Anders then takes off his own clothes in front of Fenris to see, not as a sexual display but as if taking off your clothes before a bath. He avoids eye contact but is relaxed as he grabs a book and gets in next to Fenris, but far enough not to touch. Fen again tenses, almost like he is ready to fight, but Anders just squirms happily in the bed and starts to read as if Fen isn't there. Shartan, good choice the elf brought.

Everything Anders does is both clinical and comfortable. He is trying to normalize being naked and bare to Fen. Fenris is taken aback when the therapist lays down and is naked next to him. He keeps trembling and has a hard time swallowing. He cannot gulp down the lump in his throat at first. But then after 20 minutes Fenris slowly relaxes, he is still tense but at least he is more aware of the story and hearing his therapist read for him. Anders sometimes lets out a soft laugh and before the end of the session Fenris feels his lips tug in a shadow of a smile when the therapist laughs again. Fenris was surprised that he had actually felt disappointed when the session ended.

And so the sessions wnt. The first few were almost entirely silent and ridgid on Fenris’ part, but he always left feeling… somehow warmer and more loose in the back and chest. It helps that the therapist is little more than a stranger, a faceless kind voice and warm body. The therapist’s anonymity and gentle presence made him feel like he wasn’t even a person, like he was just a kind guide of sorts. For the first time in his life it was about _him_ and not his role to the person he was with. Still, it takes many a session before Fenris learns to relax in his own skin, feeling the soft blankets move against his skin reminded him that he was naked, but it was no longer a distressing thought – even if it is still under heavy covers.

Meanwhile Anders secretly beamed with pride for Fenris’ progress, remembering how the elf would even snap or jump at Isabela’s unexpected touches weeks ago. A testament to the elf’s determination – seems he did everything with the sheer focus he also fought with. He can see Fenris grow steadily more and more comfortable, not freezing or tensing up anymore when Anders moves, and even commenting as they read. Anders absentmindedly moved his hand from the headboard to stroke Fenris’ hair while reading, both tensing at the unexpected gesture, but before Anders could snatch his hand away and apologise, Fenris melted against his hand and didn’t voice a complain, so Anders continued. By now, Fenris seems to want it even, moving his head closer when Anders starts to read for those clever long fingers to comb through his hair.

Fenris learns to talk. He tells Anders of his day, interesting things he saw at the market, a funny thing Varric said, and responds to Anders’ questions eagerly – like he likes how Anders wants to know about him. His eyes have moved from being defensive and wary to warm, open and trusting, and by the day Anders feels himself slipping…falling.

Even though Anders knows it is wrong, his heart soars in those moments. He can almost imagine that this was real, easy conversation, reading to Fenris in their bed while playing with his hair at the end of the day.

But he knew reality was never that kind. Not to him.


	3. Testing Boundaries

Something in Fenris was changing. He seemed happier, everyone was noticing it. He smiled more, and even chuckled at times. With his lighter mood and easier smiles, Anders watches as Hawke takes advantage of how much more comfortable Fenris is to have her hang on his arm, lean against him, and play with his hair. Hawke laughs at something the elf says, and Fenris’s eyes are soft as he looks at her. A frustrated, pained sound escapes Anders before he can curb it, and Fenris snarks that if he is just going to sit here all night looking disgusted with life then maybe he should leave back to his sewer.

Anders feels his heart, which had no right to even feel this way, crack just a little, even as he silently gets up and leaves. Still, in every session he falls more and more in love with the Fenris no one else knows, not yet at least, hidden in their own little world, only for it to come crashing down when he leaves.

It feels like someone dunked a bucket of cold water at him each time Fenris snaps at him or he notices Fenris allowing Hawke to caress his hand and hair like he does during their sessions. Anders always says he needs to maintain professional distance, needs to rush their sessions to end it sooner, but each time Fenris arrives looking hopeful with news to tell his therapist Anders heart soars and he cannot bare to leave the elf with his progress. He continues even if this is hurting him more. He tells himself that the pride he feels at Fenris’ progress is purely professional, but he knows it’s a lie - each curious gesture, thoughtful question, or seeing the elf grow bold by initiating conversations and touches.

But professionalism almost goes out the window when, two months into their sessions, Anders very barely loses his cool the day Fenris finally undresses in front of him.

They had a routine. Anders greets Fenris at the door, they sit for a moment and share fruit – Anders always had apple wedges ready, the elf’s favourite – while Fenris chatted away till Anders stands to retrieve their book. Fenris would ask Anders to look away and tells him again when to turn back, and by then Fenris will be safely under the covers and will watch as Anders casually undresses and joins him. 

So when Anders looks up to see Fenris’s ears and cheeks tinted bright red, his eyes carefully watching the therapist while he took off his clothes, Anders was beaming but also fighting not to stare and keep his eyes on Fenris’. “It is only fair,” Fenris mumbles in response, preening just a little under Anders’ proud smile. “You have never hidden yourself, and you’ve been exceedingly patient with me. I don’t wish to hide. Not anymore. Not to you.”

Anders tries to ignore his racing heart as he slowly takes off his own clothes. “I’ve been meaning to thank you,” the elf continues, “For taking me on. I cannot express how grateful I am. For the first time I feel like I have something to reclaim, and that is within my reach. Before I met you I could not have dreamed such a feeling.”

Anders wants to beam at the words, wants to write them on his heart and tell him how proud he is of the elf. But Fenris is thanking the therapist – not _Anders._ “You are most welcome Fenris, but I the work has all been you. You are stronger and more capable than you know. I’m just helping you realise that.”

It is a wake-up call. Even if it breaks him, his love for Fenris just wants to see the elf happy. He has been selfish by letting these sessions stretch on because he adored their time together, it had become to one thing he looked forward to each morning when getting up felt difficult, but it is time to focus again.

“So… I was thinking we should take the next step today,” Anders adds. Fen tenses a little but says he trusts Anders. “Before you will be okay with shared touches on your own body, you need to get comfortable with being the one touching.” At that Anders gets on the bed, but stretches out on top of the covers. “You may look and touch whenever and wherever you wish. You will still have full control, and I promise not to respond or touch in return.”

Fenris stares with wide eyes, a hint of the old tension back in his tall strong frame, but Anders gets comfortable and starts reading as they always have, reminding Fenris that this was still their safe space and the only thing that has changed was that Fenris had a little more control.

Seeing the therapist’s body this close, exposed to him, is a little terrifying but also exciting. He tries to listen to the story but the temptation to touch grows. But the therapist encouraged it, didn’t he? The first touches are small and cautious, goes for something easy like his hair and arm. But it takes him no time to get a little bold. He is curious about the beautiful mysterious man next to him. Being trusted like this…it does something to Fenris. The therapist lean but toned, his skin is so soft and he has the loveliest freckles scattered in some of the most tempting places. His shoulders, his chest and his hands are beautiful but shows a strength – maybe the therapist is a guard? Or does some kind of manual labour. But no, his hands are too soft for that. Fenris lets his fingers dance and trace until it accidentally brushes a nipple. He gets a small shudder and Fenris freezes, carefully watching for a reaction, his treacherous mind still afraid of being punished, but the man only clears his throat and continues, eyes never leaving the book, voice steady and soothing.

Anders tries to focus on reading. He has done this before with clients, especially when they're unfamiliar with a man's body and sees it as something scary. He's never even flinched. But because its Fenris staring at him and those green eyes roaming over his body he feels hot. At the small curious touches, he can feel his heartbeat rising but when Fenris brushes over his nipple that was already hard he has to force down the small gasp. He pulls on Justice to help him focus.

The elf meanwhile seems to have found new confidence, like he found a secret and grown bold. Fenris goes out to inspect and touch and brush more of the pale soft skin, finding out where the sensitive spots are and testing the therapist's iron will. Fenris thanks the maker for the covers over him to hide the tingles of a knot and spark in his belly, carefully ignoring it himself.

It settles in his gut that the therapist is more than a masked guide, he is a man; real and warm who flinches at a ticklish spot and breath hitches at the brush of a sensitive area.

Soon this becomes like a game to the sharp and observant elf, seeing how he can get a reaction from the carefully hidden man. He can see hints of the turmoil the redhead is in, the suppressed tremble, the heavy swallowing, how slow his reading gets and how he has to reread some lines. But the more reactions escape the bolder Fenris gets, a smug smirk tugging at the edge of his lips.

Anders never knew the elf had such a playful side, or that he was such a mischievous tease.

Feeling particularly daring, he gets very close to his ear and dares to blow some hot air in it, Anders shudders from how good that feels then turns it into an awkward cough. Fenris feels proud to cause such reaction from his therapist and grins. The man won’t touch him back or reprimand him – that was what the therapist says and he trusts the redhead. It is odd how he trusts this stranger more than any friend. Taking pity on the poor therapist Fen moves the man’s hand to his own head to play with his hair, something he never knew he would find soothing, and simply listens to the warm Navarran accent.

Meanwhile, poor Anders' hands are already trembling as they hold up the book and he looks at the clock...he just needs to hold out for 15 more minutes then he can call it a session. Sooner and Fenris will be suspicious or think he did something wrong. Longer and Anders may lose his composure. Never EVER had Anders taken his pleasure with a client, not even when they left, finding sexual gratification was another of his rules. But this might be the first time Anders will need to take himself in hand once Fen is gone. Furiously. Justice be damned.

But then those long clever fingers brush a sensitive spot on his hip near his groin and he needs to choke down a whimper. A whimper that almost came out in his regular voice. He blushes bright red from the way the sound ended up more of a squeak. To make it worse, he of course can’t hide his blush that spreads over his cheeks down to his belly, and for the first time he sees Fenris actually smiling at him, raising an eyebrow at how far the blush goes.

But Anders relaxes even as his heart skips a beat seeing the elf's smile – a little smug, but truly happy. This is good. Fenris is learning that intimacy isn't just sex and taking but about being vulnerable, trust, and feeling safe together. Its smiling and touching and teasing.

Fenris has always been a quick study with a body intelligence Anders has never seen before. All while Anders is barely clinging to his sanity. His heart feels so full at the happiness and confidence his elf is feeling, and oh how he had dreamed of seeing that smile directed at him. Fenris eventually, mercifully, slows down and decides to spend the last minutes of their session laying his head on Anders chest, his hand in soft, white hair.

Fenris was barely out the door before Anders locked it and tore at his laces to take himself in hand. It was embarrassingly quick, and he hated himself afterwards.


	4. Hurt, Healing, Hope

Even unspoken, it was clear that something had shifted. Things changed, for both of them, after that session. Fenris grew stronger, but Anders… the healer, the therapist, grew weaker.

Anders let his contacts know he wasn't taking any new clients for now. He claimed he was too busy with the clinic and other matters, but the truth was he didn’t have the emotional capacity to invest in someone new. He's never had the issue before but being with a client who isn't Fenris strangely starts feeling odd and he found himself distracted too often. He pushes it aside and focuses on doing double sessions with old clients to get them to reach their goal and end their sessions.

Outside of the clinic or office Anders is quieter in the group hangs, smiling sadly at the elf when no one is looking. The elf is blooming. He smiles and chats, sits straighter with his shoulders back and a new confidence. He talks more easily with both friends and strangers, and the stares and glares he usually got in Hightown don’t seem to bother him anymore.

“Sweet thing,” Bela purrs as she drapes an arm around the elf’s strong shoulders, her ample twins resting a little too firmly against the warrior to be accidentally. “You seem different. Happier. Don’t get me wrong, the brooding thing was hot as all hell, but this Fenris? Happy, snarky, smiling Fenris?” she kissed his head, “I like him even more.”

Instead of shaking her off rudely the warrior only returned her wink. “I think I might like him more myself.”

“So what’s your secret, Broody?” Varric asks as he shuffles the cards. “Or should I call you Smirky now? Murder muffin? Panty dropper?”

“Just ‘Fenris’ is fine.” Fenris chuckles warmly. “I have been working on some issues from my past with someone. They have helped me move beyond it.”

Fenris tenses a bit once the words leaves his lips, clearly not meaning to have let that slip. Next to him Hawk freezes, her mug halfway to her mouth.

“Is that so?” she asks in a casual tone everyone who knew here knew was everything but casual. "And who might this person be?"

“I- I cannot say, unfortunately,” Fenris stutters but clears his throat and takes a deep drink of his wine. “Varric, deal me in.”

Much like the mabari Hawke loves so much, she isn’t one to let go so easily. “Is this ‘someone’ the reason you have been so conveniently unavailable and busy the nights I wanted to see you?” She gives a dark chuckle, inspecting her mug. “Interesting that, you left me alone before the sheets had even cooled, wearing my token, but insisted you weren’t ready. Meanwhile, it seems you’ve been having your fun in secret with someone else. And here I thought you were better than the other Vint trash I’ve come across, but seems you’re just as deceiving, cheating, and cruel as the rest of them!”

Hawke was typically carefree, charming, and charismatic. But, if there’s one thing she didn’t take well – it was being lied to. Anders watched in horror as Fenris shrunk under Hawke’s anger and accusations. Guilt and shame – two expressions he never wanted to see on Fenris’ beautiful face again creeping up.

Before he can stand to interject or change the topic, however, Bela has him by the elbow and Varric is ushering them all out to ‘leave the love birds to fix their trouble in paradise’. Anders looks helplessly over his shoulder to see Fenris’ shoulders hunch as he tries to tell Hawke it is not what she’s thinking, but the ale and anger has her lips loose and her dark side showing. His heart aches as he watches all their heart work crumbling as the elf’s face crumbles.

Anders doesn’t see Fenris for a week, no one does, and he was considering whether it might be okay to show up at the mansion in his disguise when the office door echoed a knock. He had taken to spending his free nights here, in case Fenris showed up. He rushes to the door to find an elf, shoulders hunched and head down. “We need to talk.”

Anders clenches his fists and bites his lip, but lets him in.

Fenris doesn’t sit, he paces. Much like he did the first time he had entered the small, cosy apartment. “This…I made a mistake,” the elf starts, his eyes not leaving the floor. “I had come here, initially, with the intention of getting better for someone. I wanted to be worthy of her. But, coming here had been wrong, no matter how it helped.”

“Fenris-” Ander starts softly but the elf just pushes on.

“She… she was very angry. Said I was unfaithful, manipulative, a liar…a whore,” Anders has to forcully push down the desire to go fireball Hawke in the ass. “They apologised the next morning, blaming alcohol and stress but… their words rang true. They…stuck. It seems even as I tried I had become even less worthy of her.”

Anders feels a lump in his throat. He wants to yell that Hawke was wrong and was just being a jealous drunken asshole and Fen deserves so much more! He also wants to stop hiding his identity, to stop the sessions and instead see it as Fenris just visiting him – but then what use is he as a therapist in the first place? So instead he softly asks if Fen wishes to continue. Fen bites his lip and shakes his head...then nods his head... then sniffles. Without thinking Anders moves and wraps the elf in his arms holding him tight.

Fen tenses but then melts into the embrace desperately.

It’s unprofessional to reach for a client and hold them without being asked, it was against his rules, but Anders does not care, Fenris needs it. Fenris doesn’t wail or sob, he cries quietly, with silent tears falling against Anders’ collar and the elf’s shoulders shaking in his arms. After a few long minutes Fenris pushes back.

“I’m sorry… I can’t do this. I should never have come here,” he croaks stepping away. “I thank you for your time, Therapist, and for…everything. 

“Fenris please… let’s just talk-”

Fenris took another step back as Anders took one forward, shaking his head and reaching for the door. “Goodbye, my friend.”

Anders knows it’s wrong, knows this is not what he was meant to be, but he reaches for Fenris' hand as he turns to leave. “If you need to go, I will support you. You have always been free in here. But… please know that if ever you need me I will be here at our usual times. Even if it is just for a talk, a nap, or reading. If not as a therapist, then as your friend. You are brave and strong, please never doubt you are worthy. _Please,”_ Anders echoes the first words Fenris had said to him.

Fenris keeps his head down but nods. Anders lets go and the elf leaves the room and, as it feels, his life.

In his mind Anders makes peace that his practice is done. He will take no more clients and he had finished with all the others he had already. He can’t come back from here, he had overstepped the rules he set himself years ago and never crossed. His own brokenness had caught up with him the day Fenris stepped into the office. It was just a matter of time, it seems he only had so much to give.

Fenris walks home in a daze, he could’ve sworn he saw a look of hurt in the therapist’s eyes when a glanced up quickly, and the memory leads him to a long night staring into the fire with a bottle of wine. What is he doing? What is he feeling ashamed of? His mind plays over their times together, the therapist’s lips moving and tugging into smiles, how eagerly he listened to Fenris like he was really interested in who he was and what he thought, and most of all – how he _felt_ around the man in that room.

It was when the early greys of dawn creeped into his windows that the warrior realised that the idea of knocking on that door and the therapist not being on the other side was more terrifying than the thought of Hawke not wanting him. There were no declarations or promises between him and her, and with how often Bela is in her lap, Marian has no excuse to maintain some claim over him. He is no longer a slave, he is his own man. Strong, brave, capable. The therapist taught him that

He is free. 

* * *

“Did you hear? Sounds like our resident therapist has disappeared.” Varric comments as he shuffles the cards, unknowing of how Fenris feels his heart clench painfully at the news. Bela pouted that she had wished for just one session with who she can only imagine is the master of all things sex. Merril sighs and says she hopes they're okay, they had helped so many. Even Hawke agrees and takes a drink on them. Sebastian frowns and says he thinks it's better, this person sounded sinful and if someone needs help they should turn to the Maker, not to lust and temptation.

That’s when Fenris finds his voice again. He snaps back that the therapist had helped more people get their lives back than the chantry ever has and he won’t stand for such slander!

Everyone is stunned silent, especially Anders who had been oddly quiet. Varric is the first to speak up, asking carefully if that had been who Fenris had been seeing. Fenris realises there’s no backing out, but he had come to terms with the therapist's last words. He says yes, and the therapist has helped him so much more than he thought he could ever heal. The man was honourable and kind and a …friend.

Before anyone can close their gaping mouths and respond, the elf is up and out the door. He only hopes the therapist kept his word.

Anders barely has a moment to regain his thoughts before he checks the time. He nearly falls off his feet as he shoots up from his chair and out the door too – ignoring the calls of his confused friends as he dashes into the streets, taking every shortcut he knew. If his suspicions were right, he knew where the elf was headed. And he needed to get there first.

Fenris hadn’t realised how worried he was till he raised his hand to knock. He had heard the rumours that the therapist had stopped, some saying he left and others that he was killed by an ex-partner of a client he helped escape. He knocked again more forcefully, and to his great relief, the door swung open to reveal his therapist – his red hair down, his black mask on, and in his usual soft white tunic and fitted black pants.

Fenris is so relieved at seeing him, so he worried that he might not be here. The Navarran smiles softly and says that it is true that he had stopped practising, but he also made a promise to Fenris. And that he is glad Fenris is here. The moment Fenris sets foot inside the familiar space he relaxes more than he has since he last walked out. Around the therapist, in this room, he feels like he can be himself. Almost in habit Fenris starts removing his sword and goes for his belt while walking towards the bed before he realises he assumed Anders would do the same like they always did, but the therapist has not moved from the door. That he has not even undressed. Fenris is about to ask something but is stunned to see the therapist’s eyes and body language seems… emotional, overwhelmed maybe. Fragile even.

Anders, trying not to make it too obvious, is fighting the tears that threaten to escape. Now that he has the elf back here he allows himself to admit to his own feelings. He had learned that his walls are not much use when it comes to Fenris. But at seeing Fenris undress like they always did, trusting and comfortable with this simply intimacy, reminds him that to Fenris this is still just therapy sessions. He doesn’t know who is behind the mask. He was actually not sure how to proceed but he follows Fenris' lead and also removes his clothes, which makes the elf visibly relieved, and moves to the bed. It's a strange how Fenris seems to be the one taking the lead now, but one Anders is thankful for. Once both under the covers Fenris hands Anders the book and asks him to read to them

The two settle into something familiar and comfortable, something both men cherish more than they want the other to know. Fenris watches the therapist’s golden-brown eyes and long lashes as he reads. He tries to imagine the face behind the mask, trying to piece it together with only the view of the therapist’s eyes, lips and jaw. He watches those lips, how they move and form the words. How his throat moves along with it, and his strong jaw and regal long neck gives him a look of effortless grace and beauty.

He has laid awake for weeks now, alone and craving this very moment. He is done with being held back by someone else’s thoughts of what he should be.

He strong, brave and capable. Free.

After ten minutes of carefully studying his therapist, tracing and memorising his skin and movements, Fenris reaches out a steady hand to turn a slightly stubbled chin towards him. He leans forward an inch and presses a soft kiss to Anders’ lips. There’s a breathless moment where the other man doesn’t react, Fenris’ heart is pounding in fear of rejection as kissing on the lips was against the therapist’s rules, but hadn’t the man said he stopped practicing? He prayed the rules also stopped. Just as his heart is about to turn into ice, he kisses Fenris back with a soft moan in his throat.

The book falls with a soft thud on the carpet, the fire crackling softly, as the two cautiously turn to each other, their lips not parting for more than a breath. Fenris, observant as he was trained, notices the slight tremor in the man’s hands as they cup his face to pull him closer, like he is afraid Fenris will disappear. Like he wants this as much as Fenris does.

Fenris can _hear_ the man’s heartbeat racing. Fenris’ hands roam over a toned chest and strong back, back up to broad shoulders. It occurs to him that the man promised not to initiate touch, unless Fenris allowed it. He gets a warm rush of affection and lets his tongue out to taste that pouty bottom lip that featured so often in his dreams. At the small gasp he lets his tongue slip past parted lips to cautiously meet and dance with the other man’s. He tastes like elfroot tea and honey.

Fenris wants to taste it every morning and evening.

As their kiss deepens and melts together, Fenris follows his own desires and takes initiative again, leading the man’s still unsteady hand down to his hardening member, delighting in this high-pitched keen that escapes the redhead when his hand wraps around the elf’s cock even as Fenris' own breath hitches. When Hawke had first reached for his cock he had flinched and felt shame for a moment. But now he just feels excited and warm. Trust, intimacy, care. The redhead trusts Fenris as much as the warrior trusts him in return. Wants him just as Fenris wants him in return – he knows this for a fact, he can hear it, see it, feel it, _taste_ it. Isn’t that what the Navarran always told him this was about?

Anders revels in the velvety hardness of the elf’s beautiful manhood in his hand, unable to stop the slow rocking of his own hips as is hand works the elf to hardness, dropping soft kisses on Fenris’ cheeks and forehead. In his hand Fenris is rock hard, hot, but so soft; thinner than he himself is, but long with a delightful curve Anders wants to worship with his hands, tongue, and body. He softly breathes against Fenris’ neck between nips and kisses, asking what he wants.

Fenris is still a bit hesitant, he’s never been allowed to take the lead, to ask, so this is new, scary and exiting. Fenris voice comes breathy, unable to formulate words. A soft ‘ _you’_ falls from his lips, and again Fenris reaches forward to claim the man’s lips again. Anders has to fight to keep his wits about him, lest he drop his accent and this all comes crashing down, but the whimper escapes him regardless. It all feels like a dream. He can feel Fenris rocking into his hand, and Anders only pauses to swipe at the pearly beads gathering at his own weeping head to join it with Fenris’, the glide of his hand slick but firm, enough to make the warrior gasp, groan, and thrust harder. Anders keens and encourages him, _‘yes, like that, take your pleasure, Maker you’re beautiful’_ dripping from his lips without his permission.

Anders never once lost himself with a client, although he often faked it at times when the client needed to recognition that they could give another person pleasure. But this was real, he finds himself slipping. His eyes flutter closed, his hips unconsciously rock, and he has to focus on keeping his voice disguised. All he wants is to rip off the mask and let Fenris claim him. He melts into the kisses as it becomes something deeper and whispers to Fen at how good he is doing and to keep going.

Fenris grows bold with the encouragement and pushes Anders back to move on top. With their chests and hips flush he rocks their hot, hard cocks together, the shared friction so much more intense. The therapist whimpers and squirms under the elf and Fenris likes this. He keeps pressing kisses into those plush lips and even bites the lower one.

He is free to follow his whims and desires, and to see what feels good and what he likes, to explore and share his body with someone who returns it, and the freedom is intoxicating. He finds being in control and pushing the therapist down, hearing his whispers and muffled moans against his lips... incredible. it's feels so darn good. He hopes it's just the beginning though.

Anders meanwhile shuts Justice up in his head. Justice kept hounding him that a therapist should never whimper and lose control, but Anders is done. He is done being 'the therapist'. He will be whatever Fenris needs him to be, and not hold back anymore. The only thing he needs to hide is his identity, the rest...he is tired keeping those walls up. He doesn’t stop the moans, keens, or praises that rise to his lips, and thrusting up with the elf’s own. This makes Fenris softly growl and he pins his hands and hip down to make sure he does not move. Anders can only whimper but eagerly relinquishes control to Fenris. Fenris gives him an apologetic kiss but there is also vulnerability in there. As if he’s asking if this is okay... Anders smiles and with this green light Fenris continues exploring his own desires and the man’s beautiful body. A body that looks so good and erotic pinned down beneath him.

Fenris realises that in sex with Hawke he had almost no control and was instructed and dominated. He understands that some like it that way, should’ve known that the Champion would be just as commanding in bed as on missions, but he now knows that that is definitely not for him. With Danarius he also just followed instruction and did as he thought his master wanted, just like with Hawke. But here he is in charge and does what he wants, but still pays attention to what the trusting, beautiful man under him seems to enjoy most. He knows this body well, touched the skin and caressed the fine hairs. There would be small jumps or flinches but usually the therapist was always so calm. But now... Seeing it glisten in sweat, panting and squirming. Fenris feels powerful and naughty and loves it.

Anders moves his legs, lifting his knees on either side of Fenris' narrow but strong hips. Its intimate, submissive, and vulnerable but that's what Anders wants. Fenris fits so well between his thighs. Especially when he sees the elf’s face lighting up and groaning in want.

Fenris rolls his hips harder and Anders keens, wrapping his long legs around the warrior’s trim waist, a needy sound escaping him as he suggestively angels his hips. At the sound and almost begging movement Fenris is suddenly on the edge himself. He needs to pause. The idea of the man so desperately wanting Fenris to penetrate and take him has him right on the verge. Then a soft voice, again higher but warmer that his usual voice, says _'Fenris...please.... I’m yours_ '.

That pushes Fen off the edge. His whole body spasms as he comes more violently and hard than he has memory of. The therapist holds him through it, and instead of being disappointed or mad the man whispers of how good he did, how beautiful he is, and how amazing that was.

If Anders had been himself a little magic would revive Fenris to go on. But as it is, the 'masked therapist' holds him, praises him, and kisses his head. There’s always next time. He hopes. He really, really hopes.

* * *

That night Fenris cannot stop thinking of his progress, grinning to himself as he gets into his own bed. He is nearly giddy that the therapist had kept his promise and was there when he was ready to go back, and that the man allowed him to do so much. He thinks on how he can’t wait to see him again.

At that Fenris truly realises a truth his subconscious had been trying to avoid for a while now, that he might be getting feelings for a stranger... but he can’t help it. The way the beautiful man moves and sounds, is so responsive to his touch, how he genuinely compliments and praises him. There is no deception or manipulation there, Fenris trusts this as he has been trained to spot it a mile away. The man had stopped practicing, only seeing Fenris, letting the elf break the rules and giving himself.

 _‘I am yours’_ he had said. Fenris takes a deep shuddering breath into the dark at the memory of his voice at that moment. His chest clenches and flips in ways he had never felt before, it would be alarming if it wasn’t so overwhelmingly good.

Fenris feels loved, he feels beautiful and _wanted_ and he prays that this wasn’t just ‘treatment’. That night he touches himself and keeps imagining the therapist. His voice repeating over and over. Strangely familiar but so lovely.

In fact, Fenris spends the next few nights going over their last time together in his head on repeat, thinking on every bit of memory from how his skin felt, how his lips tasted, how he moaned and whimpered at Fenris' touches. He takes himself in hand a couple of times and regrets not asking the man if they could meet the next night. But their next meeting is the night after next and he is besides himself with excitement. 

* * *

Fenris smiles cracks jokes with the gang and everyone seems happy for him. They all pretends that night with Hawke never happened. Aveline comment on how good and healthy he looks, and how much lighter he seems, and Sebastian agrees. It warms his heart more than he can say to know they celebrate his progress with him. Even Hawke gives him a reluctant nod of approval.

All except the mage, that is, who can’t even lift his head for some reason.

“So stud,” Bela leers as she sits herself down next to hip and pushes in close. Fenris humours her and lifts an eyebrow. “Now that we know you’re getting all the first hand classes you should be quite the sex machine yourself, hmm? How about a tutor session for your dearest friend?”

Anders, who hasn’t said a word or made eye contact the entire evening scowls at her, a growl in his voice. “Best keep your hands and bits to yourself pirate, not even you know where you’ve been.”

Bela winks and sticks her tongue out at the mage, but Fenris knows that wasn’t a friendly teasing tone, even as Isabela takes it as such.

“How about you let Bela and I make our own choices on who we share our ‘bits’ with, and you stop pretending to be some self-righteous know-it-all? Like I haven’t heard the stories of your youth… _Vishante_ hypocrite.”

Anders seemed taken aback but Bela gets a glint in her eyes and purrs into Fenris’ ear: “Tell you what sweet thing, I’ll make an exception and patiently wait my turn if you’ll take our resident healer for a class first! No man in Kirkwall who needs a good fuck more.”

Fenris growls and shoulders Isabela off. “I’ll much rather cut off my own dick than stick it in a mage…”

Laughter echoes around the table, and his friends tease Fenris for his newfound sense of humour.

It is only when the cards come out that they realise the mage was gone.


	5. Tearing Down the City

Anders curses himself with every colourful insult he can think of, cut in with ‘ _Stupid stupid stupid Anders!’_

He should’ve never let his walls down. He only has himself to blame for being fooled to think what they had might be something real, and if he was patient enough and Fenris would give him a chance they might… But no. No one wants Anders, they only want the therapist. How can anyone ever want him.

After years of painful loneliness he had let himself dream, he wanted to be brave and allow himself to care for someone. He wanted to follow the advice he always gave. And he hadn’t mean to insult Bela, or Fenris, it was a stupid moment of jealousy…

…just like Hawke was jealous.

Anders feels sick, the tears blurring his vision. Sick, ashamed, hurt…

Any hope, any dream or wish that Fenris might one day come to see him as he is, and still look at him the way he does at the therapist is shattered. He said, in no uncertain terms, that he would never, ever want Anders.

And it hurt. His chest was constricting, eyes burning, and his throat aching in keeping his sobs back. He hadn’t cried since the night Karl died by his hand. Every old, buried hurt comes rising to the surface. His friends didn’t even care or notice he left, no one would truly care for him for who he was. He is a joke, a burden, only good as long as he is useful. 

Justice rages in his head against these thoughts and tries to comfort the mage, subconsciously leading them home as the man's eyes are so full of tears he can't see.

When the sun rises the next morning, and Anders has no more tears to cry, he makes a decision. His key lesson he always taught his clients is to know their worth, and that you cannot allow someone to just take and take and not give, because that’s how you end up empty.

Fenris has obviously recovered, and the sessions had become…selfish, in nature.

He is done giving and giving, adored when a mask is up under the cover of night, but mocked and hated when the sun was out. He had nothing left to give, and what he had given was broken.

When Fenris shows up at the office door, its locked and the windows are boarded up. He waits, 10min, 20min, an hour… nothing.

He returns three times to the locked door, each time getting more and more concerned, before he heads to the Chantry to see Leliana. If the therapist is away on a trip or sick, surely he would’ve left a message? Or told him? No, something must’ve happened.

Leliana smiles sadly and tells him the therapist has stopped completely. Fenris refuses to accept this, he is angry, he is hurt and most importantly he is worried. He promises he was not going to quit... something must have happened.

Fenris enlists Varric and Bela to help, he looks everywhere and speaks to everyone. Something happened to the only man he’s every trusted with his whole heart, who knows him better than anyone else… He won’t rest.

* * *

“He’s tearing down the whole city looking for you, you know.” Leliana’s soft voice says in the silence of his clinic. He had already put out the lantern a while ago.

He sighs an clenches his jaw. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he responds and continues working on the batch of potions.

“Hmm.” She studies his face for a moment. “Are you alright, my friend?” Her voice is uncharacteristically caring. “You’ve been scarce. And you don’t look like you’ve been eating or sleeping much.”

Anders sighs and hangs his head. There’s no use in lying to her. She knows him too well. She was the one that introduced him to Zervran in the first place. “I’m… managing.”

She places a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Find a way to let him know you’re not in danger. End it properly. For both your sakes.”

She leaves a basket of fresh bread and meat pies. 

Anders stares blankly at the crushed elfroot for so long his feet go numb. There’s no way to avoid this it seems.

He ignores the food, grabs his staff, and sets out.

He’s heard Fenris had been waiting at the old apartment every night, but he is there early enough. He picks up the mask on the table and stares at it for a while, resisting the urge to toss it into the fireplace. Instead he gets out a piece of parchment and starts writing.

He was just about done when the door rattles and busts open revealing a wide-eyed desperate looking elf. He barely has time to slip the note under a book before Fenris’s beautiful emerald eyes narrow dangerously. He has Anders by the collar in a heartbeat, shaking him. “What the fuck have you done to the therapist mage!? WHERE IS HE!”

Anders panics at Fenris’ clear murderous threat, the steel grip on his collar suffocating him so he says the first thing that comes to mind. “I haven’t done anything! He sent me here to clear out the apartment, that’s why I’m here. Now let me go!”

Fenris drops the mage. He knows the therapist had agents around the city, and it would make sense for the healer to be one. But he still wasn’t sure he could trust the mage. “Where is he.” It was a demand more than a question.

Anders was still catching his breath, moving away to put the couches between them as he straightened his coat. “He is done here. He isn’t coming back.”

“No…” Fenris says softly, then steps forward again, his tone no longer defensive but closer to how it was when it was just the two of them before in there. “Is he okay? Did something happen? Is he sick, is that why he saw you? Did someone hurt him? Please, I need to know that he is safe.”

Anders is stunned for a moment in how the warrior changes from night to day when talking about the therapist, eyes pleading. Anders was about to rip the elf a new one for accusing him so, but seeing Fenris’ distress overwrites the urge immediately. He really was pathetic.

So he tells Fenris a partial truth. “The therapist is well and safe. He had to stop because he had some issues of his own that were interfering with his practice. It would be unprofessional of him to continue.”

Fenris’ mind races then comes to a halt. The last time they were together…the therapist had broken his rules, had let himself go. This was Fenris’ fault, he was the one to drive the man away, that caused him to stop.

The warrior drops heavily on the couch, his head in his hands, hunched shoulders trembling. “This…this is my fault…” he whispers hoarsely to himself.

Anders was so ready to walk away, to cut out his own broken heart and end this, but seeing the man he loved like this… the man who broke his heart. A person in distress will always win over his own needs, and Fenris was no exception to that. His selflessness, or rather how little he considered himself worth, had always been his biggest strength and his biggest weakness. Using his healer voice he tries to calm the elf. “It’s okay, Fenris, he will be fine. As will you.”

Fenris nods. Then shakes his head. “I don’t understand… We were going to meet again. If only I could just see him again, even if just once more…” Fenris’ face was still in his hands, talking as if Anders wasn’t in the room. He had probably forgotten the mage was in the room for him to let his guard down like this. “I… I would give anything to see him. Even if its just for a moment.”

His head is telling him to leave, to let the hypocrite mage-hater cry it out and get over it, but the healer – the _man –_ in him can’t. He cautiously edges closer and puts a hand on Fenris’ shoulder, a small token of comfort, and is taken aback when Fenris moves into it like a sunflower cannot but turn to the sun. Anders awkwardly sits on the edge of the couch next to the grieving elf and puts his arm around his shoulders, the warrior hiding his face in his feathers of his coat immediately as the tears come. The man must really be in a state for him to turn to Anders _, the abomination,_ for comfort and the thought that Fenris may have cared for the therapists teases at the edges of his mind.

Then Fenris’ muffled unsteady voices reaches him. “This is so unfair… I didn’t get to tell him… We were supposed to meet again, why would he abandon me so! What have I done to make him do this to me?” Anders bites his lip at the threatening angry retort of how he isn’t the only one hurt. “I… I can’t stop thinking about him. He haunts my dreams… I sometimes smell him or hear his laugh and I think I’m going crazy.”

Anders’ hand stills where it had been carefully stroking the elf’s hair – and when did his hand get there without his permission. “Fenris…” he asks cautiously. “Do you have… ‘feelings’ for the therapist?”

Fenris gives a pained, choked laugh. “How could I not? He has become my best friend, my closest confidant…the one I trust and want at my side more than anything. And I don’t even know his name.”

At that the elf freezes, then his head shoots up, red-rimmed emerald eyes wide. “You know him! Anders, please, I _beg_ of you, please take me to him! Or tell me how I can find him! _Please,_ mage. I will be in your debt!”

Ander kicks himself. He should’ve seen this coming. “I can’t do that, Fenris,” he says with a sigh. “The therapist is anonymous to protect himself and the people he helped. I cannot possible divulge that.”

But Fenris is nothing if not a suborn tit. He sits composes himself, wiping the tears from his eyes then starts begging. “Mage, Anders, _please,_ I know I have not been the most considerate or thoughtful companion, and that you have no reason to do me a kindness, but I beg this of you. I promise on my life that I won’t tell a soul, I would die before letting harm befall the therapist, I swear this. I will do anything, mage, ple-”

Anders cuts him off as it becomes painful. “I _can’t_ Fenris. Just…trust me on this.” But the elf won’t let it drop. The next fifteen minutes is Anders desperately trying to let the elf down as easily as possible, but the damn tit persists, begging, pleading, bargaining. When Anders tries to leave Fenris takes his hand and won’t let go.

It becomes too much. That gentle but firm hand, to hear the man he loves so caught up on someone else he feels jealous… The more he stays the more the tears Anders himself had thought he cried out are starting the threaten until he snaps.

“How can you be so selfish?!” he barks, but regrets it immediately as Fenris lets go and flinches back like a dog that’s been kicked. But he pushes through. “Don’t you see what he had already given up? You think this is unfair to you, haven’t you considered it is to him too?”

Fenris’ eyes fall to the floor, his shoulders hunching to make himself small as his hears droop and flatten against his head in shame.

Anders bites his lip until he tastes blood. Even with how badly he is hurting, seeing Fenris hurting just…destroys him. He puts his hands on his hips and tilts his face up, forcing the tears back. “Fine…” he says with a defeated croak. “Fine. You win Fenris. Of course you do. I will ask the therapist to meet you here in one hour. Don’t show up a minute sooner. You can say your goodbye, but that will be the end of it, he won’t ever be back – do you understand?”

Fenris’ carefully hopeful but still ashamed expression softened the healer’s battered heart for a moment. “I understand. Thank you, mage. I… thank you. I will bother you no further, and I’ll be back here in an hour. I promise to respect his wishes.”

Anders doesn’t look at him as the elf slips out. He promised to respect the therapists’ wishes, and he will, but if the Maker will smile on him…he might be able to change the man’s wishes. It is more hope than he can pray for.

The moment the door closes Anders falls to his knees and sobs. He sobs at his own weakness, how pathetic he is, what a masochist he is to let this torture continue. But there is no time for regret. He needs to pull himself together, needs to bath and get into his disguise one last time. After tonight he promises to burn the apartment’s contents to the ground.

He practices what he will say in his mind, tries to prepare himself to stay strong. He just needs to tell the elf he is fine, there is no hard feelings, wish him well, and then goodbye. Fenris promised to honour his wishes, and the elf is a man of his word.

The hour is over before he was ready. At the knock on the door he flicks his wrist to light the fire and slips his mask on. He checks his appearance in the mirror. The ‘therapist’, with his long red hair lose, the black mask, the Navarran accent…that man dies tonight.

When he opens the door it is not to the distraught elf he saw only a few minutes ago. Fenris looks…incredible. He is freshly bathed, his hair carefully combed back, in a neat dark green tunic that brings out his eyes, and soft brown leather leggings. He holds a small bundle of flowers – clearly very recently yanked from some nobleman’s garden – and a smile brighter than the sun.

Anders stares with his jaw hanging. He had never seen the elf like this, not even for Hawke had he made such an effort. But then again, maybe he had. He hadn’t seen the elf outside the occasional card night, nor heard news. Maybe Fenris did do this for Hawke too, just like he wasn’t here for Anders but for the ‘therapist’ a bitter jealousy spikes up and chokes Anders. He gives him a weak smile. “You look nice, Fenris. Have you been able to reconcile with your loved one? The one you came to me to in the first place. Your progress has been remarkable, surely you two should be happy and well together by now.”

Fenris’ smile falters at the question, even more at the hint of bitterness he detects in the man’s voice. “That…didn’t work out. In fact, I couldn’t go back to her. There is someone else.”

Fenris’s ability to read people had saved his life more times than he could count. Although radiating kindness, the healer had always been closed off, clinical, and polite – until their last session that is. But now he notices a crack in the therapist’s façade… a hint of hurt, and anger, and a cautious hopefulness tingles in his chest. If this is his only window of hope, he will grab onto it with both hands.

“Someone else?”

“Yes,” Fenris takes a few measured steps towards Anders and closes the door. “There’s this man, an incredible, kind, wonderful man who has given me my life back, who has made me happier than I could possibly dream of being.” Another step. “They had robbed me of my senses, of my heart, and I had fallen for them without ever even knowing their name.”

Anders feels dizzy. Fenris…loves him? Doesn’t just want him, doesn’t just wish to take, but actually _loves_ him?! Fenris takes another step, close enough to touch, and Anders quickly takes two steps, ignoring the drooping ears like the blight. “I- I think you’re confused, Fenris. It happens often in therapy where a patient will think themselves in love with the therapist, it isn’t real, _I_ am not real. What you are feeling is simple gratitude, but feelings beyond that is misplace. I’m sorry, truly, but you will soon realise that I am right.”

Fenris narrows his eyes at that, ignoring the punch in the gut, the rejection it sounded like when he could _see_ that the man was fighting with himself more than with Fenris. “Do not tell me what I feel. I know damn well what I want, maybe for the first time in my life, and it is you. I will work everyday to be worthy of you, will do anything to make you happy, I just ask that you give me a chance to prove this to you.”

Anders hangs his head and wraps his arms around himself. “You don’t know what you’re asking, Fenris. You don’t know who I am or what I’ve done. I could be a whore at the Blooming Rose, or a chantry brother, or a married nobleman. The therapist’s job is to become what the client needs. Please, don’t do this.”

Fen watches the man carefully. He listens to the tremor in his voice and how he pulls in on himself, like he is trying to hide himself, hide his hurt. The elf takes a moment then carefully asks, “Tell me honestly. Why did you stop practicing? Was it because of me? And don’t bother lying, I’ll know if you do.”

Anders keeps his head down, arms tightly wrapped around himself. Then nods.

Inside Fenris’ heart is flipping. The man has feelings for him, he is sure of it. That is why he stopped, his feelings had become conflicted with the therapy. There is hope yet! Hearing this, with the memory of their last session, how the man kissed him like Fenris was keeping him from drowning, how eagerly he had spread his legs and reacted to Fenris’ touch and control with trust and yearning in his eyes.

Before the night ends, the therapist will be his, he cannot mess this up. Most importantly, he will finally know who his amatus is.


	6. Fredrich

When Fenris gives him a sweet sly smile and slowly approaches him like a desire demon he knows he isn’t strong enough, he is bruised and vulnerable and he won’t be able to resist. When the warrior let's his hands smooth up over his chest, no doubt feeling the pounding of his heart, to cradle his neck and pull him down for a kiss, he knows he's a goner.

This will be the last time, there is no resistance left in the moment but after tonight it’ll be over. For good this time. All he can do is plan to make the most of the night. This will be their last time, a way for him to say goodbye. By the end he will have to gently sneak a sleeping spell into Fen and leave before he wakes. Fen promised Anders to not ask again after tonight, surely the elf will stop then.

So Anders lets go. His tense shoulders slowly sag as he presses close to Fenris, a weak but desperate keen escaping his throat, even as he opens to Fenris’ questioning tongue on his lips. Fenris kisses like he fights and drinks wine – with passion, fire, and focus, and Anders feels his neck down his spine to his knees weaken to it, his whole body yearning to submit. 

Fenris can’t stop kissing his redhead, this incredible man who doesn’t seem to know he holds Fenris’ heart and sanity in those tender, graceful hands. If he won’t listen, Fenris will just have to show him. His eyes shut tight, lips moving to suck lightly on a pouty bottom lip before delving his tongue back into caress the velvet wet warmth of the therapist’s, Fenris runs his hands up a slender neck and into silky, smooth hair.

Both their eyes close, melting together in their passion, the words fall over the warrior’s lips between deep kisses and tender nips. Fenris tells him how badly he has yearned for this, how he wants him, how he wants to be his one and only. He tells him how the thought of having lost him pained him but having him back in his arms feels so right.

Anders whimpers pitifully. He so desperately wants to believe this is all real, that Fenris’ words are true, but he knows none of this is true. Fenris would never want him. He has said so in no uncertain terms. But for tonight…for one night he will allow himself to dream. To pretend that Fenris truly loves and wants him, without reservation or condition. The elf is usually so quiet and reserved, never wasting a word, but in this room his words are heartfelt and honest. Anders feels his chest constrict and eyes warm with threatening tears for a moment at the thought.

And loses the fight.

He really is as pathetic as Fenris accused him of being.

With a watery smile the words rush out, he tells Fenris how he couldn’t stop thinking about him, how this is so wrong and he tried, _Maker knows he tried,_ but it seems Fenris is his greatest weakness. He wants this, wants him, desperately. “I… I love you Fenris. I know I shouldn’t, but I do.”

Fenris’ arms tighten possessively around the redhead’s narrow waist, a shuddering breath of relief escaping him, then move up to reach for the mask, but the man catches his wrists. “Not yet…” he whispers. Fenris is scared the man with back away, so he kisses those hands, and instead reaches down for the hem of his tunic and finds no resistance in that.

Their lips crush again, more hungry this time, as hands start to grab at hems and laces, tugging and tossing until they are bare to each other. The moment is slightly overwhelming, the break in their routine of undressing themselves with space between them. Anders cant stop his eyes from raking over the warrior’s strong, lithe form that seems to perfect to be real. Their hunger for each other stands proud and hard, and a brush of hot velvet has them both hissing.

Anders reaches for Fenris to back to the bed, but the elf only gives a little smirk, and pushes Anders to drop back onto his back on the soft covers. Slowly, deliberately, Fenris crawls up over the redhead, lips, teeth, and tongue marking, worshiping, and savouring as he goes. The very thought of leaving his mark on his lover – love bites, bruises in the shapes of his fingers and teeth and lips – sent a thrill through Fenris, and the way the man was moaning and watching with hungry eyes – welcoming it – set fire to his blood.

The man wanted Fenris to claim him, yearned for it and welcomed it. He was Fenris’, and anyone who looked at him would know he was taken. He took a moment to lean over to the bedside table and retrieve a pot of salve. Before the therapist could see what was the distraction was the sweet torture was back. But after a few more moments breathless delightful worship to his already oversensitive heated skin, he felt a new sensation. Slick, certain, teasing fingers tracing down over his balls, down to circle his already twitching hole.

It took a few detours, it was slow and torturous as Fenris mapped out his Amatus’ body with his hands, lips, teeth, and tongue. He worshiped the scatter of freckles across his shoulders and chest, kissed and grumbled at the ribs that were way too exposed for his liking – he shot the therapist a look to let him know they’ll be talking about this later, and the redhead had the decency to look embarrassed – and traced the dips and curves of his soft belly, hip bones, and inner thighs, before his tongue finally took a slow, broad lick up from his balls sprinkled in a soft nest of copper curls, up to the red, weeping head. At the same moment, as the man moaned, his hips undulating, Fenris slipped two slick slim fingers past the twitching ring of tight muscle, causing the redhead to gasp, a moan turning to a high-pitched keen. 

Fenris had sworn that he would never do this again. It was demeaning, emasculating, and shaming. But hearing the man pant and wheeze like he can’t get enough oxygen, moaning, he felt his chest swell with pride that he was able to do this. He would die a happy man if he could make his Amatus this happy every day. His own cock was weeping, the redhead’s pleasure becoming his own.

Anders felt like would explode if Fenris so much as breathed over his dick. He stuck his fist in his mouth and bit down hard on a knuckle to keep from begging, knowing he has no control over his voice and the accent will be lost. But he had always been way too honest and expressive, and Fenris seemed to preen at every moan, groan, keen, and whimper. The feeling of Fenris inside him was dizzying and intoxicating, his hips unconsciously rocking hungrily, his hole greedily clenching around the delicious fingers teasing and touching in all the best ways. When hot elven lips closed over his aching and painfully hard cock, a talented tongue flicking over the sensitive slit to taste him, slowly circling the engorged head, Anders couldn’t.

With little more than a sudden panicked sound and frantic tapping on Fenris’ shoulder, the warrior knew the man had reached his limit. But instead of giving him the sweet release he had built up, he pulled back and skilfully clamped his fingers around the base of the therapist’s rock hard cock, tugging carefully on his balls.

The redhead gave a needy and pained moan and looked down at Fenris with a look of _‘how very dare you!’_ glaring at him through the mask, to which the elf just chuckled. “Patience, Amatus. I… I wish to share this with you. Selfish, I know, but I have spent too many hours with these thoughts. Would you allow me this?”

Anders couldn’t resist the man’s vulnerable open eyes, his honest request melting the glare he knew he was giving the warrior under his mask. He was still panting and nodded after a moment, so instead he grasped eagerly at the warrior and pulled him up into his arms. He crushed their lips together, kissing Fenris with a desperation bordering on frantic. The moment of clarity after what feels like an hour of having his body dangled on the edge has punch him in the gut with the reminder that this is just for tonight, just for now. So he kisses Fenris deep and hard as he spreads his legs to welcome his beloved. He ignores the tears welling up behind the mask, ignores the way it bumps against Fenris’ strong, elegant nose.

Fenris reaches for the mask again, but Anders intercepts his hands, laces their fingers together, and whispers in a hoarse voice under his breath, “take me. Please. I’m yours.”

Fenris hated the mask that kept him from fully seeing his Amatus’ face, but those soulful honey-brown eyes felt like they were burning into his soul, imploring him. Fenris had never felt this wanted, and he has seen many lustful looks turned his way in his memory, but this was different. The man wanted him, fully knowing every part of him. Fenris was bare before the therapist, body and soul, and the man still wanted him. Still…loved him.

For a moment the man’s voice sounded different, strangely familiar, maybe from a dream. But then the redhead bites his bottom lip and rolls his hips and he can’t deny the man. “Look at me, Amatus. I want you to know who claims you. I want to see your eyes – even if that is all for now.”

Anders has no memory of ever keeping eye contact at the moment two bodies join. It had always seemed almost ridiculous, but here in this moment, it feels like he has never felt intimacy before in his entire life, losing himself in those deep emerald eyes that feel like they’re burning, imprinting, his soul.

Fenris keeps their eyes locked as he slicks himself up and positions himself at the therapist’s eager entrance. Slowly, savouring, but deliberately the warrior pushes the flushed heavy head of his rock hard cock past the quivering tight ring of muscle, earning him a gasp-turned-hiccup, and pulling a low, rough groan from himself. He fights to keep his eyes from fluttering closed as the tight, wet embrace threatens to overwhelm him. Even as he pushes in, the squeeze and feeling leaving him dizzy, it feels like his beloved is drawing him in deeper and deeper, wanting more and more. When his hips finally press against the redhead’s his eyes close and he has to take a few shuddering breaths to keep from coming right there. Buried deep in his lover, having finally claimed and penetrated him, it just feels so _right_. It’s the most incredible and intimate feeling, something he didn’t think possible in sex until his dreams started hinting at it.

He knows no other person would ever compare to this man. His therapist. His Amatus.

“Fenris, love,” a breathy voice below him pulls him back to the room, reminding him there is a world beyond the point of where their bodies have become one. “Move. Please. Let me feel you.”

Again something about his voice nags at the back of his mind, but his beloved must just be overwhelmed as he is. Fenris also can’t help the way his ears twitch happily at hearing his name, and hearing his Amatus call him ‘love’.

And so begins the dance of their bodies. With every slow, deep thrust of his hips, Anders rolls his own, long legs pulled up to lock around his lover and pull him back every time. Anders pants and keens loudly, without restraint, as the warrior’s long, hard manhood strokes and fills him in the most exquisite ways, finding all his most sensitive spots like they were made to be joined.

Fenris takes his sweet time, set on savouring the moment and committing their first time to memory. But it is becoming more and more difficult as he watches the redhead melt even more, completely surrendering in body and soul to him. This control, this intimacy, this pleasure…

He growls and picks up the pace, thrusting becoming slamming, slamming becoming pounding as he pumps his cock in and out of his lover, filling him over and over. The man cries out in ecstasy with moans of ‘ _yes! Yes! Oh Maker… Oh fuck… Yes, Fenris! Oh oh oh! Please, more!’_

The man is gorgeous, and Fenris wants to posses him for the rest of their lives.

“Your name…” he growls, demanding but pleasing. At honey-brown eyes blearily look at him, clearly lost to their share pleasure, body shaking with each pound. “Your real name, Amatus.”

“…Fredrich.”

It’s only after the name falls from his lips between his moans and cries that he realises what he has done. He has not uttered his birth name in years, and had not excepted to for the rest of his days. Fenris asked for his _real_ name. The name means ‘peaceful ruler’ in mother tongue.

“Hhmmm,” the warrior groan. “My Fredrich… my Amatus…” his tone possessive but so painfully tender somehow between the near violent pounding that was getting more erratic. “You feel so good, Fredrich… so perfect… I… I won’t last much longer…”

Anders’ heart leaps into his throat and his chest constricts at hearing Fenris’ voice utter his name. He bites back the tears that roll anyway down his cheeks as he loses himself completely. “Ja! Ja! Meer, my liefse, gee my jou alles – _Ahh! -_ gee jouself vir my. Ek’s joune – Net joune! Oh maker Ja! Eks lief vir jou – met my – hele hart – vir altyd.”

Fenris growls at hearing his beloved’s native tongue his voice desperate and needy. It is not the Navarran he recalls but there is no space for such concerns between the glistening, steaming, heat of their passions, the cries and moans and harsh panting. He falls forward to steal his Fredrich’s breath in a deep all-consuming his, his erratic hard thrusts stroking against the man’s neglected proud cock causing him to wrap arms and legs tightly around Fenris.

“ _Gonna come… so hard inside you… My Fredrich…”_ Fenris growled between harsh breaths and groans. _“Mine… only mine…”_

_“Only yours…forever…”_

One moment the abyss was clawing, the edge crumbling and reality with it, the next Anders throws his head back, his throat releasing a cry that is more a scream while his back arches like a taut bow and his release bursts forth to paint their chests. Fenris lets out a sound Anders would never thought possible – a high, rough roar as he slams once, twice, three times and comes so hard Anders can _feel_ it deep inside him. The long, delicious, rock hard cock spasms and shoots his seed deep in his lover.

The bites, bruises, and marks over his pale skin lovingly decorating him, his love’s essence deep inside him… Fenris has claimed his Amatus. There is no going back.

Fenris is still coming off of the high, marvelling in the bliss and the thought, that he doesn’t see the tears rolling freely from Anders’ eyes. Blissed out he allows the man position him on his back as he tenderly cleans him up. It had been perfect, beyond perfect, better than he could’ve dreamed.

He raises his head to call his Fredrich back to bed, only the man is standing with his back to Fenris. His voice breaks as he tells Fenris he loves him. Deeply, completely. Before Fenris can reach for him, however, he is suddenly taken by a heavy draw of the fade and falls back on the pillows sound asleep.

Anders’ shoulders shake as he bites his lips to cry silently. A sleeping spell, as subtle as he could manage. Knowing the elf will not stir soon, he turns back to Fenris and goes to kiss him on his forehead one last time, drops his head on his strong chest to listen to his heartbeat one last time, then turns away. What had been left of his broken heart was now no more. The pain is indescribable.

Fenris was in love, of that there was no doubt. But not with him. Never with him.

When Fenris wakes to the early morning bird’s song, feeling happier, lighter, and more rested than he has any memory of feeling, the bed next to him is cold. He startles and is up on his feet in a heartbeat, calling for Fredrich. All he finds is a note on the table by the dying fire. Next to it is a mask.

_“Fenris, My Love_

_I wish I could explain to you why this would never work, I wish you would forgive me and there could be a way for us to be together, but trust me, my dearest, if I say there is no way. I have spent nights awake in pain and tears searching, but there isn’t._

_I will always love you. There can never be anyone but you, never again. I know you can’t forgive me, but know that I will always be grateful to you for the love you had shown me. However fleeting._

_All my love forever_

_Your Fredrich”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations for Anders' passionate native tongue ramblings:
> 
> “Ja! Ja! Meer, my liefse, gee my jou alles – Ahh! -gee jouself vir my. Ek’s joune – Net joune! Oh maker Ja! Eks lief vir jou – met my – hele hart – vir altyd.”
> 
> "Yes! Yes! More, my love, give me everything - Ahh! - give yourself to me. I'm yours - yours alone! - Oh Maker yes! I love you - with my - whole heart - always."


	7. Anders

Fenris ignores the concerned murmurs of his friends and stares blankly into the glass of wine in his hand. After Fredrich left him no food or drink has tasted of anything but ash, and drunkenness brought pain and memories instead of relief. He had read the letter over and over till the paper went soft. It is still tucked safely into his belt. The mask sits on his mantle at home, darkness where warm honey-brown eyes had once burned of love. The memory of the tear stains on the pillow and the fading ones on the note giving him no comfort, but knowing the redhead suffered too was somehow a small relief.

For the way the man had moved, kissed him, and confessed to loving him truly and completely – Fenris trusted every word. Even has he raged, and cried, and screamed in frustration and hurt for days after. It had been his one chance at happiness, his dearest and best friend… someone he wanted to come to see as his family… now that was gone too. He really was alone.

But there was no tearing down the city searching for the therapist this time, not returning to the apartment over and over. The one time he did go it had been emptied and boarded up. It was over. He suspected Bela and Varric had tried to look for him too, but to no avail.

He hears the mutters and worried tones around the table. ‘Husk’, ‘never seen him like this’, ‘he won’t even look at us’, ‘it hurts seeming him like this’ and similar words was over him.

It would seem, however, that Fenris isn’t the only one acting strange.

“Hey, has anyone seen Anders lately?” Hawke asks. “I tried to visit him twice over the past four days and he didn’t even open the door. Said he was busy. I think something might be up.”

Varric huffs. “I was wondering about that too. My sources have told me he hasn’t opened his door in the past four days, ignoring the knocks of the injured. That’s not our Blondie. But from sounds inside they know he’s there.”

“You don’t think Justice has him, do you?” Merrill asks, burning with genuine worry.

“Nah, we would’ve seen blue from the cracks in the door. Or found a shit-ton of Templar bodies.”

Hawke was thoughtful, her frown and pursed lips were usually a warning sign for a plan being hatched. She shot the silent, morbid elf a look then stoop abruptly, he palms slapping on the table. “That’s it. Sleep-over. Tonight. The mansion.”

At raised eyebrows and wide eyes she continued. “When we were kids and one of us was down dad would always make us have a sleepover in front of the fire. Pillows, bedrolls, snacks, spooky stories. Worked everytime.”

The response was a mumbled of excuses about early patrolling and paperwork and being busy till she slapped her fists again. Her smile but feral. “Not a request. An order. I can’t take this anymore. You guys are my family now and I will _make_ you all come to my house tonight even if I have to drag each of you there!”

Everyone knew simultaneously that 1 – there was no escaping this, and 2 – she really would follow up on the threat.

The rest of the meeting was about time, and what to bring, then they dispersed. Hawke headed for Darktown.

* * *

Anders tried to ignore the concerned looks and silencefrom his friends as Hawke pretty much dragged him into the mansion with a smile on her face and her arm a vice grip around his waist. For a rogue who was shorter than he was she was surprisingly strong. And scary.

He knew what he looked like. Hawke already told him. He was pale, gaunt, with dark circles under his eyes. His skin was waxy and his hair was dirty. Merrill tried hard to pretend everything was fine as she ran up and hugged him hello, but her big expressive eyes were more honest than that.

He did find himself touched by her care and gave her a small smile. That seemed to break the ice and everyone continued chatting as they put their bedrolls and backpacks down in the library, arranging a giant bed between the couches in front of the fireplace.

Fireplace… the memory of Fenris’ bright eyes and smile as he chatted away about his day in the firelight as-

Anders violently shook his head as if he could shake the though. Dog thought Anders was playing and huffed playfully and shook his head violently too sending slobber everywhere before turning a big mabari smile to the healer. Anders welcomed the distraction, even if it was a dog.

Just as he was settling in Aveline and Fenris walked in, and the little whispers of peace Anders might have felt at the distraction evaporates. Everyone else greets them with a cheer that Aveline responds to, but Fenris only offers a grunt.

“Hey Blondie,” Varric slaps Anders on the shoulder, pulling him back from the brink of despair. “We already have a Broody. And he has been especially broody lately.”

“Can’t agree more,” Hawke adds, suddenly at his other shoulder. She’s giving Fenris a sad look then turns to Anders. “But tonight is about good things. And we already have one broody so we can’t have two! So, how about you go take a bath, getting into some comfy clothes. I have a sleep shirt you can borrow. Varric promised his best scary stories and Orana baked chocolate tea cakes!”

Anders pulled a face and was about to protest when Varric leaned in. “Blondie, hate to say this, but please go take that bath. You stink.”

Very reluctantly he put down his small bag that held his shabby bedroll and one spare shirt and followed Hawke upstairs. At least he could get out of the room for a bit. He wondered how long he would be able to avoid them. Would an hour bath be too long?

While he filled the tub and warmed it Hawke went rummaging for something to wear and came back with a big sleeping shirt that would go down to his knees. He mumbled his thanks and started absent-mindedly unwrapping the bandages from his boots and unlacing them. Absent-minded had been a good way to describe the past few days. He didn’t leave the bed and alternated between sobbing till he couldn’t breath or just staring into nothing. He found the only way he could get by was distraction or just shutting his mind off. Tonight would’ve been a big help if it wasn’t for the fact that the object of his heartache and heartbreak was here.

He was so distracted at removing his clothes and getting into the bath that he didn’t notice Hawke looking at his thin frame sadly only for her eyes to go wide in shock before she shut the door quietly after her and raced down the stairs.

Anders had pointedly ignored the marks Fenris had left on his body, the last reminders of the most incredible night of his life. He couldn’t bring himself to heal them away, couldn’t wipe away the reminders of the love he had been shown, even if it was just for a few hours. It was only when he leaned back in the steaming hot water, sighing in relief as the hot water seeped into his tired aching bones, that he looked down to see the bruises and bites over his pale skin. He took a shaking unsteady breath and lifted his eyes to resist the tears. Not that he thought he had any left in his body.

* * *

“Sorry for taking so long, I kinda dozed off a bit,” Anders said as he stepped into the library. He had a scarf he fished out of Hawke’s closet on with the long shirt to hide the marks. At the silence he looked up to see wide eyes staring at him with varying degrees of horror.

Aveline was the one to stand up and approach Anders like he was a scared wounded animal. “Anders, this is a safe space and we only care for you. But I need you to tell me who hurt you?”

At Anders’ eyebrows raising in confusion Merrill let out a silent sob and ran to him to throw her arms around him. “Oh vhenan, why didn’t you tell us someone was hurting you? This isn’t right…”

He was…making Merrill cry and Aveline actually show an emotion that isn’t just exasperated. “Am I…missing something here?” He asked, his arms awkwardly hovering over Merrill’s shoulders.

“I saw the bruises, Anders. There’s no use in lying to us,” Hawke said. A look between murderous and sad on her face. “There’s no use in hiding it. Why didn’t you say something? I… I should’ve come by the clinic earlier. Should’ve insisted you let me in…”

“You saw…” he realised it then. She saw the marks on his body. She thinks it was because he was being abused? “Oh fuck, no, Hawke, there’s a misunderstanding. No one hurt me, no one is hurting me, I promise!”

To his shock and surprise it was Fenris who got up then and approached him. “Mage, we can protect you. I…I know what it is like under abuse and not seeing it as such. Because you don’t know it is, or you don’t want to see it as such. I _promise_ you if you tell us who did that to you, I will personally make sure they never touch you again.”

Bela appeared at his side, casually flipping a dagger. “He won’t be alone. No one hurts our healer. I’ll feed him his own balls, just point us in the direction.”

“No, I swear, I’m not being hurt! He would never-“ Anders starts, his hands raised in a calming gesture as he steps away.

“So there _is_ someone”, Aveline says and narrows her eyes. “I need a name Anders.”

Sebastian sighs, turning heads to him. “There is no use in helping someone who doesn’t want to help. Anders clearly doesn’t want their help or fussing.”

Fenris spins on his heals then, glaring fiercely at the brother. “Don’t you dare talk of things you don’t know, Sebastian. Being in an abusive relationship under a controlling person is nothing simple and doesn’t need your impatience, so I suggest you hold your tongue instead.”

The elf snapping at his friend brought an awkward atmosphere in the room for a moment, but Fenris doesn’t care. He can’t explain why he feels strangely protective over the mage, angry at the wounds Hawke said she saw. Maybe it had been the way Fredrich changed him. Made him a better man.

Seeing the mage feeling confused and overwhelmed he took the man by the elbow and lead him out the room, closing the door with a mutter of ‘give us a moment’. Outside Anders immediately took three steps away, arms wrapped around himself, head down, the sudden distance not quelling the elf’s concern. “Mage, I do not wish to bully you into talking, but please know if ever you wish to talk…I am here for you.” He shuffled his feet awkwardly but kept his eyes on the mage’s downturned face trying to meet his eyes. “I know what it is like to be in such a position.”

On the one hand Anders feels emotional in his pride of how Fenris is reaching out, overcoming his biases, and how much stronger and comfortable he is in his skin and with his past. So much that he extends a helping hand to the person he hates so. But the soft look in his eyes when Anders glances up reminds him of the way he used to look at the therapist and Anders looks away again.

“I swear, it isn’t what you all think. It’s just a misunderstanding, no one hurt me. I… I wanted these. And they are of no concern to any of you.”

“You wanted to be harmed?”

“I wasn’t! He would never hurt me!”

The mage’s tense, defensive body language wasn’t convincing Fenris in the least. He knows pain, knows having to hide the hurt you feel. And he is looking at it.

“Alright, if that’s not the case, then I will tell the others to drop it, as I will.”

“Thank you.”

“If you show me the bruises.”

“What?!”

“Remove the scarf and your shirt and if it is clear the marks were not maliciously caused I’ll put a stop to all of this.”

“N- no!” Anders sputters and takes a step back. “I- I should leave… I shouldn’t have come here…”

Anders tries to shoulder past Fenris, but the elf is faster and stronger. “Mage, you may hate me now but I’m doing this for your own good.” He reached out to grab the mage’s shirt but when Anders tugged away, Fenris tugged harder, and the soft material of the old sleeping shirt tore.

All Fenris could see was a hint of teeth imprints and purple, so he quickly reached the other hand out too and in a swift pull tore the shirt down the middle ignoring the mage’s curses scratching.

At first he was horrified at what he saw, the pale skin so marked up, but then… Then he realised what he was looking at.

Anders stood frozen, now knowing why he couldn’t move. Fenris had a firm grip on the two torn sides of the shirt, huge green eyes wide and staring at his heaving chest. He felt like an animal in standing stunned in the middle of the road, unable to escape the danger he can see fast approaching.

Slowly he sees realisation dawn over the elf’s strong features. His ears droop, lips part silently and face goes slack. But when he reaches out a hand to touch the imprint of sharp elven teeth on the mage’s neck Anders slaps his hands away and jumps back wrapping the loose ends of the large sleep shirt around himself.

“Ande- …. Fredri…” Fenris mumbles as his eyes snap up to the healer’s. Soft honey-brown. How had he not noticed. How had he never looked into the man’s eyes long enough to see. His hair…silky looking, the right length but not the right colour…but such things could be hidden. His length, his shoulders… “Its you…” he whispered.

Anders’ lip trembled with words that didn’t come. Then he turned and bolted.

Only when he reaches the door a determined looking Aveline and murderous Isabela is there discussing how to comb the city. He skids on the carpet and heads for the stairs. He’s jumped out of windows often enough, he can do it again.

He had just reached the guest room when he was tackled into the ground, strong arms clamped around his waist.

“Get- off- me!” Anders struggled and kicked. “Let me go!”

“No,” Fenris says sternly, and Anders can hear the double meaning in it. The no to both letting Anders go and _letting Fredrich go._

He flips the mage onto his back, strong warrior hands pinning his wrists to the carpet and he glares down. “You… you lied to me!” his voice was pained and enraged, and Anders couldn’t blame him. “You told me your name was Fredrich! I told you EVERYTHING and you LIED to me!!”

“I DIDN’T!” Anders yells back, admitting to it all. “I never lied. My real name, my birthname, isn’t Anders. Anders came later, a nickname to the strange new kid in the circle from the Anderfels. I was born Fredrich… I hadn’t told anyone that in over 20 years.”

Fenris seemed taken aback, and Anders uses the opportunity to kick the elf off him, scrambling back against the wall and curling in on himself. “I… I never lied, I swear. Yes, I had the accent and mask and hair, but no word I told you was ever a lie… Just please, please don’t kill me. I haven’t said a word to anyone, and I never will.”

Anders hadn’t realised he had actually started crying again, the threatening tears finally falling again. But these were tears of fear and rejection. Fenris knew the truth, knew it was him, and looked at him with shock and disgust.

A hand touches his hair and he flinches away, but the fingers still brush through them. The elf remains silent.

“I never meant to hurt you, Fenris. The day you came to me I couldn’t send you away. That would’ve been selfish of me. And you see now why I couldn’t tell you who I was.” He gives a weak wet hollow chuckle. “You said you’d rather cut off your own dick than stick it in a mage, remember?”

More silence, then a quiet “I remember.”

“I’m sorry Fenris. I truly am. I’ll leave the city. You won’t have to see me again. Won’t have to be reminded of me. Just please…don’t hurt me.”

After long moments of silence Anders unfurls just enough to look up. The warrior looked lost, a little angry, but hurt. His ears are low and flat against his head, and his big eyes have a distinct puppy quality.

“Do you truly think so little of me? That I could hurt the person I love?”

“You…do?” Anders croaks. “Fenris, you can’t possibly…”

Fenris sighs and hangs his head. “I fell in love with a person, not a face, Fre-, Anders. I fell in love with a gently soul, a big heart, and kind man. Your magic doesn’t make you any less that man.”

“But you said…”

“I know. And…I’m sorry, mage. It occurs to me now how much I have hurt you with my careless words. All while I loved this other side of you. And even though it nearly broke me, I understand why you did what you did…”

Anders sniffs. “You don’t hate me?” he hated how pathetic that sounded, but years and years of insecurities were screaming at him that it was too good to be true.

“I’m so sorry for how I hurt you Anders,” Fenris says as he carefully scoots closer. His eyes imploring. “You… you didn’t turn me away when I needed help, you let yourself be hurt for me, you… you gave up being the therapist for me…”

He slowly moved the last few inches till he could take Anders’ gentle healer hands in his own, elegant pale hands he knows so well. “Amatus… Tell me the truth. What am I to you? If you turn me away now, I will understand. I have hurt you terribly, and the knowledge will burden me forever, but if you would only give me a chance, I swear I will spend every day convin-“

Fenris never got to finish his sentence. He suddenly got a lap full of sobbing mage desperately wrapping his arms around the elf to hold him tight as if terrified of the possibility that Fenris might disappear. Warm, soft lips capturing him in a kiss. A kiss that taste both of the bitter pain that had past, and the promise of a future together.

* * *

"And that brings us to now," Fenris finished to the rapt but suspicious audience. The mage had since not left his personal space and now sat curled up in his lap as if the larger man wished to be smaller and wrapped in Fenris' arms. As said mage pressed closer to him, the elf indulged his mage with a small smile. 

  
"Uh-huh..." Hawke said. Next to her Varric was furiously scribbling on any piece of parchment he could find. She sat back, a satisfied look on her face which was a nice change to the near aggressive suspicion that was there before. "Well that does explain why Bela, Aveline, and I found you two making out like the world was ending and the Maker demanded we reconcile with our worst enemies to avoid eternal damnation..."

Isabela gave a dreamy sigh. "Oh and wasnt it a sight... all that tension and angst and miserable pining erupting in passion." She throws Aveline a frown and a pout. "Still say we shouldn't have disturbed them. They were seconds away from ripping their clothes off. Or in Anders' case, the rest of his clothes."  
Fenris bristled a bit at that. He adored his friends and appreciated their care, but he had no intention of sharing what was his and theirs. He turned the mage more into his chest to keep the torn shirt from the pirate's hungry gaze. The action was possessive and Anders purred happily into his neck.   
Kaffas but he loved this man. 

  
"Oh I am so happy for you!" Merrill piped up, bouncing where she sat on the couch with her hands together, eyes bright and honest. "You look so good together! So happy! Dont they look happy?"

  
"They sure do kitten," Bela responded. Her own eyes and smile a lot more earnest and softer than usual. "Its a good look. Much better than miserable mage and sad pining Broody. Nothing hot about that."

  
Anders huffs. "Thanks Bela." He looks up at Fenris with so much adoration and awe Fenris' heart skipped happily. No one else in the room could deny it was real when the blond looked at the elf like that. "I think it's good too."

  
"That only leaves one more thing," Varric spoke. Everyone turned to the dwarf curiously.

  
"Yes?" Anders responded carefully.

  
"...Fredrich?"

  
Anders groaned and dropped his back to hiding in Fenris' shoulder as the laughter and spitfire questions rang around him.   
But here with the soft chuckles and warm arms of his love around him, he could take their teasing. He could handle anything.   
For the first time since the first templar put his metal claws on him...he felt like he was going to be okay. 

  
He was loved. 

  
Whole. 

  
Happy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all folks!
> 
> So this was a shitshow I threw together while being very emotional and an AU developed with the most creative talented friend, Mago-Emplumado (check her out on Tumblr!). 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading it <3


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